In defense of the defenseless

There aren’t many out in the NBA world who might defend San Antonio Spurs forward Richard Jefferson.

He disappeared at the end of the regular season and then in the last half of the Spurs opening round loss to Memphis. The part that hurt most about Jefferson’s disappearing act at the end of the season was with the various injuries the Spurs were going through, it was RJ’s time to step up and he didn’t. That being said, it’s not time to give up on the Spurs lone legitimate small forward.

Here’s the point, the Spurs didn’t lose to Memphis because Jefferson disappeared – though it didn’t help – but because Memphis’ bigs roughed them up, Manu Ginobili had a broken arm and Mike Conley outplayed Tony Parker.

As Project Spurs’ Jeff Garcia pointed out in March, the larger problem is Jefferson’s inconsistency. He started off the season on fire and then his points per game decreased every month except for the month of April when it jumped up an entire point from the month of March. The point is, you wouldn’t mind between 11 and 13 points a game for Jefferson is he averaged between 11 and 13 points a game every month.

11-13 points per game is middle of the road for a starting forward for an NBA team. The Spurs haven’t had 11-13 points per game from a small forward since Sean Elliott. My question is could fatigue have been a problem for RJ?